Let’s see.. Friday W is flying to aus, D is flying to europe, K is flying to US, Sat A & V are flying to aus, Sun J is flying to aus, Mon J is flying to aus, J is flying to US. You can imagine the number of ‘bon voyage’ i say over the next few days.

Since I had problem going away for a long holiday, we went on a 1-day island getaway. Or rather the idea came about because Cauchy-Riemann bored me to tears last week that i picked up my phone and smsed everyone “want go ubin?”

We managed to quickly get over to ubin without much waiting because there were already 2 old couples waiting to cross over. So plus the 8 of us, we made up the number for one boat.

Leaving Singapore

Suaku or what, this was my first visit to ubin. On top of not knowing how to cycle, I wasn’t from any CCA that had camps at ubin and so i had no reason to be there. I am not called a citykid for no reason.

First ubin view

It must be obvious that I was new to ubin because immediately after i went up to the info kiosk to get a map, the guard ( or what do you call that uncle who sits behind that info counter) asked me how sydney is. The question drew a blank until i realised i was wearing a “sydney Olympic 2000″ t-shirt. Did he think i was from sydney?

We first went up this hill which overlooked the quarry. Chin once told me an interesting story about this quarry which made it even more “must visit”. The clear blue green water from the top view has an effect of making you feel that you are far away from bustling Singapore, until you see the blocks of punggol HDB flats in the background. Someone again asked why the water is blue. Because blue is my favourite colour… I am going to repeat this everytime someone asks me this question.

Top view of the quarry

We walked to the prawn ponds next, only to find that we were on the wrong way and that old prawn ponds had closed. The new ones were located quite a distance away and so we had a good reason to have lunch first.

Coconut tree that stood tall

We met the 2 old couples again at the drinks stall. They had actually gone to ubin to cycle and pluck cocoa. Someone actually commented how this was such a cheap and romantic date for them. haha.

Drink stall with the best marketing tagline

After lunch we headed to chek jawa, aiming to reach there at low tide. But after trekking through a considerable amount of distance, we somehow thought we were lost in the jungles. There were tapes tied around the trees and we had no idea if they were used to mark out the area or just tapes left behind by inconsiderate campers so we detoured and later found ourselves in some unknown area. It being a Tuesday afternoon didn’t help because there wasn’t a single soul that we met along the way. For half an hour or so, we were just trekking aimlessly in the woods with lots of mosquitoes chasing us and meeting a group of wild boars. We even came up with ST headlines in the event that we were really lost and the news reported in ST. It’s times that like that the line “Sometimes we just have to keep walking” made most sense.

The crabs hid faster than i can capture them

We finally reached chek jawa but we missed the low tide timing. All we saw were mangrove trees, lots of crabs and the holes they made, rocks and alot of mud on our shoes. Not a single starfish was seen! We took a few photos and retreated from the place seeing that the tides were rising and we needed time to trek back to the jetty before the sky darkens.

Where’s the starfish hiding?

The boat ride back was especially refreshing with the strong cooling winds blown into your face after a long day’s trek under the hot scorching sun. Better than daikin, i say. I tried the famous nasi lemak at changi village and that marked the end of the ubin trip. That is with blistered feet and tired legs with lots of mosquito bites.

Bye for now

I calculated we had trekked about 13-14 km in a single day. A pity there was not enough time for chek jawa. We shall be back the next time… with phua chu kang boots and super powerful insect repellents. Cloudy is right, mosquito patches are only good for sticker books.

I cannot quite decide how i should spend the next 3 months.

I want to go on a holiday, but looking for travelmates that i can get along with and able to fix our dates requires too much brain cells that i have decided to look into this when i am free.

I want to read some books. They are sitting on my table or in my computer (ebooks) as for now.

I seriously need to get my research project started, I think my supervisor is soon going to stick up notices around the school to look for me for disappearing so long.

So far i have been visiting shopping malls and trading my signatures for useless things and meeting up with people and having good food all day long. Tuesday i had dinner with P&C, Wednesday and Friday i had lunch with sis, Sat we had an early mother’s day celebration, Sunday i met my jc friends for lunch. In between i watched lot of tv dramas as well as keeping track of the GE. The live result show, i reckoned, was even more exciting than watching Singapore Idol.

Australia’s lastest tourism tagline “So where the bloody hell are you?” sure attracts attention. Nevermind that it sounded so unrefined compared to our “Uniquely Singapore” and Malaysia’s “Malaysia, truly Asia”.

But because of the usage of the words “bloody hell”, Britain had banned the tv advert in their country but later lifted it after Aus’s tourism minister flew in to london to save the situation.

I wonder if the campaign will ever reach singapore. If it doesn’t, you can watch the tv advert here. What the bloody hell are you waiting for?

Note: On the website, click on the “send a postcard” and you can listen to the “bloody hell” song.